30 June, 2016

The
United States fears Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU) is
one more symptom of the neo-liberalism's terminal decline, says
Professor Dennis Etler, an American political analyst who has a
decades-long interest in international affairs.

Etler, a
professor of Anthropology at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California,
made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Wednesday while
commenting on recent statements of US President Barack Obama and
Secretary of State John Kerry.

On Tuesday,
Obama dismissed the global reaction to Brexit as hysteria. “I
would not overstate it. There has been a little bit of hysteria,
post-Brexit vote. As if somehow NATO is gone and the transatlantic
alliance is dissolving and every country is rushing off to its own
corner. That's not what's happening.”

Hours later,
Kerry has said that Brexit might never happen, calling the process of
leaving the EU complicated. "This is a very complicated
divorce," Kerry said on Tuesday, one day after he met with
British Prime Minister David Cameron.

“US
President Obama, as one would expect, is downplaying the significance
of Brexit, while his Secretary of State, John Kerry, has stated that
Brexit might never happen, calling the process of leaving the
European Union ‘complicated,'" Professor Etler said.

"In
attempting to downplay its significance both have inadvertently
highlighted the fact that Brexit is a watershed event in the
geo-political contention that has come to characterize the current
global situation,” he stated.

“In
fact Obama expressed its true significance when he said, ‘As if
somehow NATO is gone and the transatlantic alliance is dissolving and
every country is rushing off to its own corner. That's not what's
happening,’” he added.

“While
it is premature to characterize European affairs in such stark terms
his statement clearly articulates the fears Washington has as it
looks out at the fraying ‘Western’ alliance. The neo-liberal
Washington Consensus is being challenged on all fronts,” the
analyst noted.

In the US
insurgent presidential candidates on both the Left (Sanders) and the
Right (Trump) have waged vigorous campaigns that have resonated with
a large number of disaffected voters. When combined the strength of
the anti-establishment vote constitutes a majority of the electorate.

Popular
reaction against neo-liberalism

“It is
not only the US which is seeing an upsurge in popular reaction
against the neo-liberal status quo, popular support for Brexit, and
similar sentiments in other European nations, attests to burgeoning
discontent with the stagnant economies, and austerity measures that
have overwhelmed and impoverished many sectors of the continent.
Coupled with the refugee crisis triggered by US/NATO intervention in
the Middle East and North Africa, the ‘European Dream’
represented by the EU has become a nightmare,” Professor Etler
said.

“While
NATO has not yet ‘gone’ and the transatlantic alliance has not
yet ‘dissolved’ both are under more stress than at any time in
the past,” he stated.

“The
Washington consensus is also being challenged in other regions of the
world. In the Middle East the US and its Zionist/Wahhabist allies are
confronted with an anti-imperialist front backed by the military
might of a resurgent Russia which will no longer kowtow to
Washington, while in the Asian-Pacific region US hegemony is being
challenged by a rising China which refuses to be intimidated by
attempts to rein it in,” he said.

US losing
hegemonic control over world

“The
emergence of a Sino-Russian entente and the consolidation of an
Eurasian geo-political center of gravity is sending ripples across
the globe, spurred on by China's growing network of trade routes and
financial heft. The US is desperately trying to stem the tide, but to
no avail. Its trade initiatives in both the Pacific Rim (TPP) and the
transatlantic (TTIP) are now in limbo,” Professor Etler said.

“Its
attempt to isolate and cordon off Russia is failing, while its plans
to turn the tables against populist regimes in Latin America are
meeting with renewed resistance. Brexit is thus the latest blow to
the floundering neo-liberal Washington consensus. The unraveling of
the post-WW2/post Cold War status quo is inevitable,” he
pointed out.

“What
is emerging is a world based not on the ‘limited sovereignty’ of
US hegemonic control, but a world in which free, sovereign nations
work together to build a better world based on the principles of
peaceful co-existence, namely mutual respect for each other's
territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, mutual
non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, and equality and
cooperation for mutual benefit and sustainable development,”
the academic concluded.

Many
prominent Republican Party war hawks are publicly endorsing Hillary
Clinton because she is the most war mongering of all the US
presidential candidates, an American political analyst and activist
says.

Myles
Hoenig, a Green Party candidate for Congress, made the remarks in a
phone interview with Press TV on Wednesday, following the release of
the Quinnipiac University poll which shows Clinton has a slender
national lead over Trump in the race for the White House.

“Although
polls can show trends, often they are more of a snapshot at the
moment in how people feel. It’s not surprising that Clinton leads
Trump at this point but that it’s by only 2 points is interesting.
Trump has had a lousy week and Clinton, on the other hand, has not
had a lot of Sanders’ attacks to diminish her in the eyes of the
general public,” Hoenig said.

“Recent
reports are out that Trump never expected to win and that he was
hoping for coming in second as a protest candidate. Many dignitaries
in the Republican Party are deserting him and notable Republican war
hawks are publicly endorsing Clinton. That’s not surprising as she
is the most war mongering of all the candidates out there during this
election cycle,” he added.

“Trump
has also been showing how inept he is when it comes to understanding
world politics and is being openly ridiculed for it. Just look at his
praise of Scotland voting to leave the European Union, when in fact,
they strongly supported remaining. The colorful tweets attacking him
have done nothing to lend any credibility to him,” the activist
stated.

28 June, 2016

The results
of Sunday's elections in Spain didn't bring anything new.
Unexpectedly, the People's Party of Mariano Rajoy gained 14 more
seats (137) compared to previous elections, yet still far from the
176 seats required to form government.

Although
Podemos managed to build a coalition with the United Left and other
Leftist forces, forming Unidos Podemos, remained in third place with
71 seats. No much difference since the last elections in December
2015.

It would be
unnatural to expect from the voters who voted for establishment
(PP/PSOE) to change in only six months and go to Unidos Podemos. Yet,
Iglesias made the same mistake as Tsipras in Greece. He actually
ignored the truly disappointed Spanish voters who have chosen not to
vote, and tried not to frighten the moderate pro-establishment voters
in order to attract them.

As mentioned
previously “Corbyn,
Iglesias, Tsipras, and others from the moderate European Left have
made completely wrong diagnosis of where things are going. They think
that a possible Brexit will be a significant loss against their
dreams of a united Europe inside the framework of the Leftist
internationalism. They live with the illusion that Europe can change
course towards this type of internationalism, while in reality Europe
has been directed with high-speed to the exactly opposite direction:
the neoliberal internationalism through which the banking-corporate
neo-Feudalism will soon become a reality.”

Being part
of the moderate Left, Iglesias has exactly the same illusions as
Tsirpas. Not only he thinks that the current EU monster could be
transformed into a Union that will truly serve its citizens under the
lobby-occupied Brussels regime, but also that this can be achieved
through "sincere" negotiations with the euro-hyenas.

Consequently,
the European Left didn't dare to lead the battle against the EU
neoliberal monster, starting from Brexit. So, the extreme
nationalists exploited this fact to appear in the front line of
another big battle.

Iglesias,
Tsipras and others appear unable to understand that playing the
moderate card won't lead anywhere. SYRIZA already has been
transformed into a Social-Democratic entity that is forced to take
further cruel measures for the majority of the Greek citizens. They
don't understand that millions of disappointed voters won't buy the
"revolutionary" speeches in campaigns by the Leftist
leaders, when at the same time these sit on the same table to
“negotiate” with EU's/eurozone's black priesthood.

Both SYRIZA
and Podemos will start to decline into a stagnating situation by the
fact that they are unable to attract millions of disappointed voters
while try to achieve the impossible: create a humanitarian Europe
through “negotiations” with the representatives of bankers and
lobbyists.

The only way
to escape from this situation is to declare, together with the
European Left, a real war on these bankers and lobbyists, throwing
out of the game the dangerous nationalists. Otherwise, the Left will
be vanished again, and the nightmare of the Far-Right will start
dominating Europe.

The current
struggle in France over labour law reforms is not just between the
Government and trade unions – a European battle is waged. The
attacks on social rights stem in no small part from the web of
EU-rules dubbed 'economic governance', invented to impose austerity
policies on member states.

Strikes and
actions across France against reforms of the country’s labour
protections, known as the El Khomri Law, demonstrate the immense
unpopularity of the measures proposed by the French Government.
Chiefly among them, to give preference to local agreements on wages
and working conditions, when the conditions in those agreements are
less favourable than the national norm inscribed in national law.
This is an open attempt to undermine collective bargaining and roll
back the influence of trade unions.

Ultimately,
the French Government has formal responsibility for the weakening of
labour protection. But there is no denying that the European Union is
playing an important and perhaps decisive role in the attacks on
labour rights. What we see is the EU throwing its rulebook in the
French workers’ faces. Practically all the new rules on so-called
'economic governance' adopted following the eurocrisis have been
applied, and make France look like a EU test-case. The European
Commission, with the backing of the Council, has used the rules on
member states’ deficits to exert pressure, threatening with
sanctions, should the French Government not give in and seriously
reform its labour laws. Simply put, France has been required flat out
to ensure higher profitability for businesses by driving down wages.

How does all
of this work?

Sanctions
more likely today

First and
foremost, the reforms in France are related to the country’s
deficit. Like most other EU member states, the state’s finances
looked pretty bad in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. In
2009, a case was opened against France for breaching EU rules which
stipulate that its deficit must be no higher than 3 per cent of GDP.
If taken to the extreme, this 'excessive deficit procedure' can
result in a fine of billions of euro, and – not least in the case
of France – a severe loss of face to its EU partners.

The
'excessive deficit procedure' was given more teeth with the so-called
'Six-Pack' set of EU rules in 2011 – a key part of the
austerity-focused economic governance package – which introduced a
reverse majority vote in the Council: if the Commission does decide
to fine a member state, like it has threatened to do to France, there
will have to be a qualified majority against the measure from other
member states to block it. Good reasons for the French Government to
be slightly scared – and a weapon to be used in its attempt to
convince parliamentarians. The likelihood of sanctions for not
meeting the budget deficit targets is much bigger than in the past,
when both Germany and France escaped humiliation. But how to meet the
Commission’s strict targets, and how to behave to the satisfaction
of the Commission, is what clearly links the El Khomri law in France
to the austerity regime being rolled out from Brussels.

Enabling
demands of 'structural reforms'

Being 'in
the procedure', means you’re under close surveillance by the
Commission, and with regular intervals, the case of the French
deficit has been brought up at meetings with member states ministers,
who have assessed if France (in this case) has made sufficient
efforts to remedy the problem. Specific recommendations have been
made, though until 2013 the labour law was hardly mentioned. The
recommendations stuck to the development of the deficit, whether it
went down at the required pace. But in 2013, there was a new tone in
the Commission’s recommendations. France was asked to meet its
deficit targets “by comprehensive structural reforms” in line
with recommendations from the Council “in the context of the
European Semester”. Structural reforms are no small matter. They
are defined as changes that affect “the fundamental drivers of
growth by liberalising labour, product and service markets”. Such
ambitions were starting to be pushed on France at the European
Semester.

But what is
the European Semester? It is a procedure involving the Commission and
the Council that ends with a set of recommendations for reforms to
each and every member state, based on a proposal from the Commission.
At the beginning in 2011, the recommendations were non-binding, but
in 2013, a new set of rules went into force under the so-called
Two-Pack, another part of the economic governance package intended to
enforce austerity. One of the regulations of the two in the package
was about measures to ensure deficits were corrected, and among other
things, it made a link between the deficit procedure and the European
Semester. If a member state is under the deficit procedure – like
France – it would have to draw up an 'Economic Partnership
Programme' that includes the recommendations from the Council
–typically the kind of structural reforms that would have a clear
impact. If the programme is not followed, then it will have a bearing
on the Commission’s decision to initiate the final phase of the
deficit procedure: sanctions in the form of a fine worth billions.

So, when the
Two-Pack entered into force in early 2013, the tone of the messages
to France on its deficit changed. France was now asked to implement
“comprehensive structural reforms” of its labour law and the
pension system. This had a bearing on how France would be treated
under the deficit procedure and whether it would come in for
sanctions, and for that reason, recommendations started looking more
like demands.

In other
words: whereas earlier country specific recommendations adopted under
the European Semester were just that, with the Two-Pack from 2013,
non-compliance could lead the Commission to take the next step
towards sanctions.

"Slash
wages now!”

There’s
more. In the early stages of the eurocrisis another procedure was
introduced that was to work in parallel to the deficit procedure: the
'Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure'. This procedure allows the
Commission to monitor the development of member states’ economies
based on a predefined set of indicators. One of them – perhaps the
most important one – measures how high the labour costs are
developing (unit labour costs). If wages are not kept at bay,
competitiveness suffers, and measures have to be taken, so the logic
goes.

The
'Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure' is also a potent weapon, as it
can lead to a fine if a Eurozone member state crosses the line
repeatedly and for a long time. And France has been in the crosshairs
of the Commission for quite a while. Commission staff has
investigated French labour law and identified what factors contribute
“to limiting the ability of firms to negotiate downward wage
adjustment”, and the French Government has been warned – as has
many other member states – about developments in wages. In 2014,
the Commission said “unit labour cost growth is relatively
contained but shows no improvement in cost competitiveness. The
profitability of private companies remains low, limiting deleveraging
prospects and investment capacity.”

The calls
for action to improve the profitability of private companies have
been sent to France from Brussels on numerous occasions over the past
couple of years, and have gained in strength. Thus far, the climax
was in February 2015, when the Commission stepped up the procedure
and singled out Bulgaria and France as the most pressing cases. The
decision put France only a small step from the last stage of the
imbalance procedure, the dreaded 'excessive imbalance procedure'
which entails – exactly like the deficit procedure – a massive
fine. If all fines are put together – from the deficit procedure
and the imbalances procedure – they could amount to 0.5 per cent of
GDP, or in the case of France, approximately €11 billion.

The final
countdown

Such a
prospect must be terrifying for the French Government, and in 2015,
then, it would have to come up with something of substance to appease
the European Commission and its partners in the Council. In March
France was given two more years to bring its house in order, and if
there was any doubt over the way to get there, the message to France
in July was clear. Country Specific Recommendation number 6 to France
under the European Semester, includes a call to “reform the labour
law to provide more incentives for employers to hire on open-ended
contracts. Facilitate take up of derogations at company and branch
level from general legal provisions, in particular as regards working
time arrangements.” In other words, the very reforms now at the
centre of dispute with the El Khomri law.

The
recommendation was copy-pasted from a Commission proposal; one that
struck a chord among business lobby groups. In the annual 'Reform
Barometer' of BusinessEurope, a procedure set up to influence the
European Semester, the French employers association MEDEF was
enthusiastic about the move, and dubbed it “extremely important”
in its contribution to the Reform Barometer 2016.

End game

Who exactly
has done what since the summer of 2015 is the subject of intense
debate. French media outlet Mediapart suggests the German Government
might have played a big role in designing the French reforms, while
others believe the specifics were entirely homemade. In any case,
there is no denying that the reforms were pushed heavily by the
European Union, more specifically by the Commission and the Council.
And the push was based on the web of rules on member states’
economic policies, sometimes called 'economic governance', that has
been spun thread by thread since 2010. The strengthening of the
deficit procedure, the European Semester, the Two-Pack, and the
macroeconomic imbalance procedure have all been used for the purpose
they were invented: to exert maximum pressure on member states to
adopt austerity policies.

There are
other similar examples in Europe at the moment. In Italy and Belgium
too, you see the effect of the new tools handed over to the European
Union since 2010. But France is special for its size and its power in
the EU. The ongoing struggle in France can be seen as a major test
case for European economic governance. If a big, powerful EU member
state can be pushed to attack fundamental traits of its labour
protection law, then the risk of new and stronger measures are much
more likely in the future. Even if French workers are unaware of it,
they’re fighting a European battle.

With
the Brexit repudiation of the E.U. — in defiance of Establishment
scare tactics — British voters stood up for common people who face
marginalization in the neoliberal scheme of global economics,
explains John Pilger.

by John
Pilger

The majority
vote by Britons to leave the European Union was an act of raw
democracy. Millions of ordinary people refused to be bullied,
intimidated and dismissed with open contempt by their presumed
betters in the major parties, the leaders of the business and banking
oligarchy and the media.

This was, in
great part, a vote by those angered and demoralized by the sheer
arrogance of the apologists for the “remain” campaign and the
dismemberment of a socially just civil life in Britain. The last
bastion of the historic reforms of 1945, the National Health Service,
has been so subverted by Tory and Labour-supported privateers it is
fighting for its life.

A
forewarning came when the Treasurer, George Osborne, the embodiment
of both Britain’s ancient regime and the banking mafia in Europe,
threatened to cut £30 billion from public services if people voted
the wrong way; it was blackmail on a shocking scale.

Immigration
was exploited in the campaign with consummate cynicism, not only by
populist politicians from the lunar right, but by Labour politicians
drawing on their own venerable tradition of promoting and nurturing
racism, a symptom of corruption not at the bottom but at the top.

The reason
millions of refugees have fled the Middle East – first Iraq, now
Syria – are the invasions and imperial mayhem of Britain, the
United States, France, the European Union and NATO. Before that,
there was the willful destruction of Yugoslavia. Before that, there
was the theft of Palestine and the imposition of Israel.

The pith
helmets may have long gone, but the blood has never dried. A
Nineteenth Century contempt for countries and peoples, depending on
their degree of colonial usefulness, remains a centerpiece of modern
“globalization,” with its perverse socialism for the rich and
capitalism for the poor: its freedom for capital and denial of
freedom to labor; its perfidious politicians and politicized civil
servants.

Saying
‘No More’

All this has
now come home to Europe, enriching the likes of Tony Blair and
impoverishing and disempowering millions. On June 23, the British
said “no more.”

The most
effective propagandists of the “European ideal” have not been the
far Right, but an insufferably patrician class for whom metropolitan
London is the United Kingdom. Its leading members see themselves as
liberal, enlightened, cultivated tribunes of the Twenty-first Century
zeitgeist, even “cool.” What they really are is a bourgeoisie
with insatiable consumerist tastes and ancient instincts of their own
superiority.

In their
house paper, the Guardian, they have gloated, day after day, at those
who would even consider the European Union profoundly undemocratic, a
source of social injustice and a virulent extremism known as
“neoliberalism.”

The aim of
this extremism is to install a permanent, capitalist theocracy that
ensures a two-thirds society, with the majority divided and indebted,
managed by a corporate class, and a permanent working poor.

In Britain
today, 63 per cent of poor children grow up in families where one
member is working. For them, the trap has closed. More than 600,000
residents of Britain’s second city, Greater Manchester, are,
reports a study, “experiencing the effects of extreme poverty”
and 1.6 million are slipping into penury.

Little of
this social catastrophe is acknowledged in the bourgeois-controlled
media, notably the Oxbridge-dominated BBC. During the referendum
campaign, almost no insightful analysis was allowed to intrude upon
the clichéd hysteria about “leaving Europe,” as if Britain was
about to be towed in hostile currents somewhere north of Iceland.

Dismissing
‘These People’

On the
morning after the vote, a BBC radio reporter welcomed politicians to
his studio as old chums. “Well,” he said to “Lord” Peter
Mandelson, the disgraced architect of Blairism, “why do these
people want it so badly?” The “these people” are the majority
of Britons.

The wealthy
war criminal Tony Blair remains a hero of the Mandelson “European”
class, though few will say so these days. The Guardian once described
Blair as “mystical” and has been true to his “project” of
rapacious war. The day after the vote, the columnist Martin Kettle
offered a Brechtian solution to the misuse of democracy by the
masses.

“Now
surely we can agree referendums are bad for Britain,” said the
headline over his full-page piece. The “we” was unexplained but
understood — just as “these people” is understood. “The
referendum has conferred less legitimacy on politics, not more,”
wrote Kettle, adding: “the verdict on referendums should be a
ruthless one. Never again.”

The kind of
ruthlessness for which Kettle longs is found in Greece, a country now
airbrushed. There, they had a referendum against more austerity and
the result was ignored. Like the Labour Party in Britain, the leaders
of the Syriza government in Athens are the products of an affluent,
highly privileged, educated middle class, groomed in the fakery and
political treachery of post-modernism.

The Greek
people courageously used the referendum to demand their government
seek “better terms” with a venal status quo in Brussels that was
crushing the life out of their country. They were betrayed, as the
British would have been betrayed.

On Friday,
the Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was asked by the BBC if he
would pay tribute to the soon-to-be-departed Cameron, his comrade in
the “remain” campaign. Corbyn fulsomely praised Cameron’s
“dignity” and noted his backing for gay marriage and his apology
to the Irish families of the dead of Bloody Sunday.

Corbyn said
nothing about Cameron’s divisiveness, his brutal austerity
policies, his lies about “protecting” the Health Service. Neither
did he remind people of the warmongering of the Cameron government:
the dispatch of British special forces to Libya and British bomb
aimers to Saudi Arabia and, above all, the beckoning of World War
Three.

Ignoring
Russia’s Memories

In the week
of the referendum vote, no British politician and, to my knowledge,
no journalist referred to Vladimir Putin’s speech in St. Petersburg
commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of Nazi Germany’s
invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. The Soviet victory –
at a cost of 27 million Soviet lives and the majority of all German
forces – won the Second World War.

Putin
likened the current frenzied build up of NATO troops and war materiel
on Russia’s western borders to the Third Reich’s Operation
Barbarossa. NATO’s exercises in Poland were the biggest since the
Nazi invasion; Operation Anaconda had simulated an attack on Russia,
presumably with nuclear weapons.

On the eve
of the referendum, the quisling secretary-general of NATO, Jens
Stoltenberg, warned Britons they would be endangering “peace and
security” if they voted to leave the E.U. The millions who ignored
him and Cameron, Osborne, Corbyn, Obama and the man who runs the Bank
of England may, just may, have struck a blow for real peace and
democracy in Europe.

The EU
is a deeply undemocratic institution enforcing austerity and
privatisation on its member states. In what strange world is this a
progressive institution?

by
Paul Embery

The EU is
now, more than ever, defined by its fanatical commitment to the rule
of market forces, privatisation and the rolling back of the power of
national governments. This ideology of neoliberalism explains the
EU’s enthusiasm for the politics of austerity, which it has imposed
throughout the continent as a response to the global financial
crisis.

But, just as
austerity has failed in the UK, it has failed throughout the EU.
Twenty-three million are unemployed thanks to EU-driven austerity.
Living standards have collapsed thanks to EU-driven austerity.
Far-right groups have gained strength thanks to EU-driven austerity.
Renewed tensions have emerged between nation states thanks to
EU-driven austerity. Public services have been decimated thanks to
EU-driven austerity.

When
economies crashed, the EU’s answer was to impose more crippling
austerity as part of any bailout condition. This served only to
generate deeper impoverishment and social tensions.

The EU’s
commitment to neoliberalism means its laws are designed to encourage
private enterprise at the expense of public ownership. As a result,
we have seen an accelerating transfer of ownership and control of
industry from elected governments to big corporations.

Trade
unionists and socialists make key demands over public ownership. But
many of these demands would actually be prohibited under EU law. So,
for example, renationalising the railways is forbidden, as EU law
compels member states to open up their railway systems to the market.

And the
controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)
deal, which would open up public services, including the NHS, to
wholesale privatisation, should be reason enough for anyone who cares
about these things to support a Leave vote.

The recent
Tata steel crisis threw into sharp relief the pernicious effects of
EU law on ownership. Understandably, many trade union leaders and
some Labour MPs demanded the government nationalise the Port Talbot
steelworks. But missing from their demands was any recognition that
such a move would undoubtedly have breached EU law, which prohibits
member states from using public money to rescue failing steelmakers.
EU competition rules dictate that these things must be left to market
forces instead.

Indeed,
earlier this year, the EU took punitive action against the Belgian
and Italian governments after they used public funds in an attempt to
rescue steelmakers in trouble.

That’s why
we shouldn’t get too excited about the recent decision by the UK
government to take some control in Tata. First, the government isn’t
nationalising Tata; it is taking a mere 25% stake. Second, even this
limited step is likely to fall foul of EU law. However, it is
questionable as to whether, against the backdrop of the referendum,
the EU will intervene at this stage to block it. As the Guardian’s
respected economics editor, Larry Elliott, perceptively pointed out:
‘Is Brussels really going to kibosh the government’s rescue plan
if the consequence is that Europe gets the blame and the referendum
is lost? It will see the bigger picture.’

It is
therefore probable that in the case of the government’s
intervention on steel the EU will, for reasons of expediency, choose
to look the other way for a few weeks.

But we
should be in no doubt at all that EU law is ultimately framed to
benefit the privateers and to discourage public ownership of
industry, even in cases where entire communities and thousands of
jobs are at risk.

Trade
unionists and socialists stand for investment in industry as a means
to achieving full employment and economic growth. Investment is
particularly important in tough times, as it stimulates economic
activity, increases tax revenues and aids recovery. Austerity does
the precise opposite.

After the
global financial crisis struck almost a decade ago, EU-driven
austerity prevented many countries escaping recession. Crucially, EU
rules, under the Stability and Growth Pact, prohibit any member state
from running a budget deficit of more than three per cent of GDP.
This means that any government wishing to borrow to invest as a means
to boost the economy faces rigid constraints. This, in turn, means
that recessions and austerity are prolonged. The doctrines of John
Maynard Keynes, which for so long after the Second World War provided
the foundation of economic policy for left of centre governments, are
effectively illegal inside the EU.

One of the
primary arguments deployed by some on the Left against withdrawal
from the EU, is the danger of what is termed a ‘Right-led exit’ –
meaning a withdrawal undertaken on the terms of Tory right-wingers
and Ukip. But this argument is flawed, because it appears to
completely discount the fact that the Remain campaign itself is
dominated by the political Right. Just consider, David Cameron,
George Osborne, the Tory government, the CBI, the IMF, the Bank of
England, the wider banking industry and big corporations are all
fighting desperately to remain inside the EU. They do so in the
knowledge that a ‘remain’ vote would settle the issue for at
least another generation, and with the consequence that for all that
time we would be locked into an institution that is explicitly
pro-neoliberal and anti-socialist. Add to that the restrictions of EU
law that would constrain any incoming Labour government, and with the
EU heading in an ever-more anti-democratic direction, it is obvious
that a ‘Right-led Remain’ poses a much greater threat to workers
than any ‘Right-led Brexit’.

There is
also a view among some on the Left, particularly in the trade unions,
that while the EU’s enthusiasm for neoliberalism and austerity is
an inescapable truth, our interests are best served by staying inside
it because it has delivered some rights for workers. They claim that
these rights would be threatened by a withdrawal from the EU.

In truth,
the picture is far more complex than that. Many of the main planks of
workplace legislation giving benefits to UK workers – such as on
health and safety, equal pay, the minimum wage and trade union
recognition – were won through the UK parliament as a result of
trade union campaigning. They had little or nothing to do with the
EU.

Even today,
the broad sweep of workplace law - such as on pay, terms and
conditions, dismissal, industrial relations and disputes - remains
completely outside the remit of the EU. (This is why, for example,
the Tory government is able to push the Trade Union Bill - the
biggest assault on workers in a generation - through parliament
without any opposition whatsoever from the EU.)

The image of
the EU as some great protector of workers is hard to reconcile when
considering that, in keeping with its neoliberal objectives, it
promotes zero-hours contracts under flexible labour market rules and
deliberately weakened collective bargaining arrangements in the
bailout countries. And let’s not forget that the most fundamental
workers’ right of all – the right to work – has been denied to
millions as a direct result of austerity-induced mass unemployment.

Worryingly,
in two landmark legal cases – Viking and Laval – the European
Court of Justice ruled that collective action by a trade union could
be deemed illegal if it is taken to prevent an employer setting-up
in, or posting workers to, another member state, for example in an
attempt to pay cheaper wages.

And while as
trade unionists we must oppose attacks on immigrants, we must also
recognise that the EU’s policy of open borders has given rise to an
explosion of cheap labour and contributed to the undercutting of
wages (a reason why the policy enjoys the support of big business),
caused real social tensions, placed public services under pressure,
and fuelled the rise of far-right groups. The truth is that
unrestricted movement of labour has the capacity to cause social and
economic disruption just as much as the unrestricted movement of
capital. None of this is to blame immigrants personally. Nor it is to
absolve governments or unscrupulous employers for their actions. It
is simply to recognise the reality that EU-driven mass migration has
impacted on the lives of workers in a real and tangible way.

In the final
analysis, any perceived benefits of EU membership in terms of
workers’ rights must be set within the context of the huge setbacks
suffered by workers as a result of EU-inspired austerity.

Ultimately,
it is a question of what the EU is defined by. Is it defined by its
support for trade unions and workers’ rights? Or is it defined by
its zeal for neoliberalism, austerity and cuts? It is surely the
latter.

We should no
more look upon the neoliberal EU as a friend of workers because it
gave us the Working Time Directive than we should look upon the
neoliberal Tory government in the same way because it gave us the
‘living wage’.

And what of
the small matter of democracy? The EU parliament has no right to
initiate or repeal legislation. Instead, all legislation is generated
by the unelected EU commission. The EU parliament is effectively a
rubber-stamping body for the commission – a fig leaf for democracy.

Throughout
the history of the EU, there has been a gradual but unrelenting
transfer of power away from elected governments and towards unelected
bureaucrats and big corporations. This is an insult to all those who
fought for the vote and the principle that ordinary people must be
allowed to hold their rulers to account.

In Greece
last year, the people voted decisively and explicitly against
austerity in a national referendum. But the EU establishment forced
it on them anyway in brutal manner.

To avoid
further bailouts, the EU is now demanding deeper economic integration
between member states. This can happen only if there is closer
political union. This, in turn, would mean even more power being
transferred from national governments to unelected bureaucrats and
bankers. The EU superstate is no longer a distant threat; it is a
growing reality.

That's why
there is no status quo in this debate. The question of 'stay as we
are' or 'leave' is actually one of 'in even deeper' or 'leave'.

Some argue
that we need to be inside the EU in order to reform it. Such talk is
idle. Government after government has been saying the same thing for
years, even decades. But in reality the EU is unreformable. Indeed,
it has been designed to preclude serious reform.

The EU
commission is unelected and unaccountable. There is no democratic
mechanism by which it can be reformed.

The UK
government recently undertook a ‘renegotiation’ of EU membership
in an attempt to achieve serious reform. It threatened to walk away
from the EU if it didn’t get its way. But even under this nuclear
threat, the EU offered very little in the talks. If the EU isn’t
prepared to reform under threat of withdrawal by a significant member
state, when would it be?

Neoliberalism
and unaccountability are locked into the EU through its treaties and
directives. To reform the EU from being a neoliberal, anti-democratic
institution into being a progressive, socialist, democratic one would
mean that all member states must agree simultaneously to unpick all
of this. There is zero chance of that happening.

Those of us
on the Left must seek to build solidarity between workers in
different countries. But we do not have to be locked into a
highly-bureaucratic, anti-democratic, anti-socialist, supranational
institution to achieve that.

A Leave vote
would not of course put an end to the attacks being suffered by UK
workers in the name of austerity. We would still face at home a Tory
government hell-bent on making workers pay for the economic crisis.
But the EU referendum gives us a clear opportunity to kick away one
of the pillars of austerity which has caused so much suffering to
workers.

We may then
concentrate our efforts on defeating the enemy at home and electing a
Labour government committed to a radical programme of investment,
redistribution of wealth, full employment, defending public services,
improving workers’ rights and reinvigorating our democracy.

Fukuyama, an
ex-official of the State Department, with very poor intellectual
capacities, became world famous in 1990 with his idea that History
has ended. Now History is back, in full steam.

One may
agree or disagree with Brexit. But he has to admit that here we have
to do with a clear anti-estabishment revolt of the British, a revolt
with clearly national but also clear class characteristics. Look for
instance the pattern of the vote. City voted overwhelmingly to remain
in the Union, the popular, de-industrialized and agricultural regions
of the country, the “lost of globalization”, very much for
Brexit. (As has happened in many cases, during the collapse of the
Soviet Union, nationalism was not the only direct reason of the quest
for independence of the Republics, antagonisms for power and property
were very much the reason, still it was the national idea which
offered a ready basis of legitimacy for the break down).

The result
represents also an enormous historic defeat for Dr. Scheuble and the
whole German leadership, it understands or not (as so many times has
happened in German history).

The
question is not Britain, the question concerns all Europe

It is not
only that Britain is exiting the EU. The Union itself has entered a
process of a probable collapse as a structure. This process will
leave nothing unaffected. Internal equilibriums in various national
states, the European economic order and geopolitics. It is not only
the neoliberal (under German co-domination) EU which will probably
leave the scene of history. It is all the European “ancien regime”
which is prepared to leave. At least the one consecrated with the
adoption of the Maastrich Treaty and the triumph of neoliberalism.
(Indirectly also with the political choice to go on with NATO
enlargement, of which the EU enlargement was the political-economic
part).

Let us hope
that the collapse of post-national neoliberalism will not lead also
to the collapse of the fundamental achievements of European peoples
after 1945. From now on we enter a “chaotic” period, in the
mathematical sense of the word, with very different positive or
negative possibilities.

An
unacceptable Union

They will do
and say everything to reinterpret, to diminish and to distorde the
meaning of the British vote, still the verdict is unequivocal and its
significance explosive.

The European
Union, at least as it stands now and with the policies and the
arrogance it is producing, is simply unacceptable not just by
British, but by a clear majority of all European citizens. The
Maastricht system, institutional incarnation of neoliberalism (and
atlanticism), imposed in Western Europe in the wake, and under the
enormous impact of the collapse of “Soviet socialism”, and also
of the Mitterrand (and the British Left) defeat and capitulation and
of the German reunification, as it was executed, proved to be a
socially regressive, economically inefficient, politically
oligarchic, antidemocratic structure.

It is
collapsing in front of our eyes, as the result of the first wave
(2008) of the financial crisis and the way European leaders reacted
to it. Its destruction could catalyze a second wave of
financial-economic crisis.

The final
political blow to the legitimacy of the European Union was inflicted
last year, when all the world saw the way Berlin and Brussels crashed
Greece, a member of the European Union.

Even if they
did not say anything at the time, everybody drew the conclusions
about the nature and the character of this Union and of German policy
in Europe. It was only a question of time before the political
fall-out of this “victory” turns back, hitting those who
masterminded it. This is what is happening now.

Greeks were
too weak to succeed in their rebellion. British were too strong to
accept such a Union. It was History, not the Left or the Right, which
put European revolt on the order of the day. European Left proved in
2015 too hesitating, too weak, too unwilling to become the leader of
the Revolt till the end. A part of the European Right was there to
fill the vacuum, at least at that stage. And it did it.

By voting to
leave the European Union, British citizens confirmed, as
contradictory as it may seem, that they are deeply Europeans, in
their own way of course and following the particular path history and
the international position of their country has determined.

By voting
the way they voted, British did the same that did, before them, the
citizens of Cyprus, of France, of Netherlands, of Ireland, of Greece,
every time they had the opportunity. They rejected massively the
policies produced and imposed by the elites, both national and
European ones (the two more and more indistinguishable), in spite of
the enormous terror and propaganda campaigns to do the opposite.

European
elites answered to this repeated cry of peoples by saying to them
that they don’t understand what they are voting for, by ignoring
the direct expression of the popular will and by doing the exact
opposite of the policy they were mandated by their electorate to
apply, in complete disrespect of the most elementary democratic
principles.

The Marie
Antoinette syndrome

Maybe
European elites thought that, if there is divorce between people and
its rulers, they should change people, as once Berdold Brecht put it
to the adress of the rather deaf East German rulers of his time.

By doing it
time and again, they simply laid the ground for a strong European
nation to go one step further than previous revolts, voting clearly
for a divorce with Brussels. Though some forces in the British Left
have supported this, so it would be inexact to attribute everything
to the Right (the opposite happened in Greece where a part of the
Right supported the revolt), it did that under the initiative and the
domination of Rightist forces, because they were the only available
to play this role. This may have and it will have of course a huge
impact on the follow-up, but is not changing the fundamentals roots
and the character of the revolt. It makes more, not less necessary
for the European Left to review and change in a radical way its
policy towards both the national and the European questions. If it
will not do it, it will simply disappear just as the regime is
disappearing.

In Britain,
but also everywhere in the continent, the European Union is more and
more understood by a majority of the citizens as a system not
defending people from, but organizing social regression. (Some of its
leaders even say it openly, probably unaware of the political
consequences. Barroso for intance said some years ago that everybody
knows that future generations will live in worse conditions than in
the past! Some advisors of Sarkozy have stated openly their goal to
overrun completely the social project incarnated in the historic
compromise French communist resistance passed with De Gaulle, in
exchange for resigning from the goal of a revolution in France, but
also because De Gaulle supported in fact a “social-democratic”
and national project for his country).

In the
western and in the southern parts of Europe “European integration”
as it is realized, it is also more and more understood as a mechanism
to take back from people the political freedoms and rights they used
to enjoy after the victory over Nazism and Fascism, in 1945 and, as
far as it concerns Portugal, Spain and Greece, after the collapse of
the dictatorships in 1974. It is not a coincidence the fact that JP
Morgan for instance, published, some years ago, a report stating that
the huge obstacle to reform which needs to be overcome are the
“antifascist constitutions” South European nations acquired after
1974!

It is
important to remark at this point that there is from time to time a
lot of talk of “federation” in Europe, but no real project of
federation. By “federation” they mean, in really Orwellian terms,
not any federation of European nations and states. They mean their
subordination to the power of the High International Finance (and the
US as far as it concerns geopolitical questions). There is no more
telling symbol of this subordination, and of the enormous lie hidden
behind all federation talk, than the appointment of a Goldman Sachs
banker, Mr. Mario Dragui, in the position of the President of the
(independent, but only from people and nations) European Central
Bank, in fact to the position of an unelected European super Prime
Minister.

The revolt
of Europeans is developing along national lines for a number of
reasons. Most people, especially the most threatened, and in
particular the more traditional working class, feel the need, by
instinct, before they hear anybody telling them, of state and of
nation to protect them. Some people in the Left believe this is
reactionary, but they have to explain why is progressive the
replacement of national states from the international rule of big
Banks (many of them and the most important, they are not even
European!)

It is not a
coincidence, that those revolts are happening mainly in nations which
have, more or less, a strong national tradition. Cypriots have done
one of the first anti-colonial revolutions after the 2nd World War,
in spite of being a handful of people opposing an Empire. In the
administration councils of French multinationals they speak now
English, still France remains the country of the Marseillaise and it
has a tendency to remember it, every time it feels the need. By the
way, the first communist revolution in modern European history, the
Paris commune, begun because French bourgeoisie wanted to handle the
capital to the Germans. Netherlands is one of the birthplaces of
European freedom, the country of Spinoza. Ireland as a country has
been defined by the revolt against foreign rule. Greeks have mounted
a ferocious resistance against Hitler, when most European nations had
compromised with him. They inflicted in 1940-41 the first military
defeat in Europe to the Axis and their subsequent resistance has
provided to the Soviets and the “General Winter” precious time,
while it disturbed seriously Rommel’ s logistics in Africa. (By the
way they paid a very heavy price, as they were betrayed or crashed by
their Allies after the War. They risk now to suffer the same fate,
paying a terrible price for both their revolt and for the
unpreparedness and betrayal of their leaders).

Neoliberals
have been able to control nearly all the media and political
landscape, intellectuals and the public opinion. They were even
capable of erasing mush of History from the program of western
universities. You can be a graduated economist nowadays, but ignore
completely Keynes or Galbraith, a political scientist, without having
read one page of Plato or Aristotle, a psychologist ignoring the work
of Freud. Even most physicists do not know how Kopernic or Galileo
were thinking.

By
controlling everything, they fell victim of their success, believing
finally blindly their own propaganda. By saying so much time and on
so many occasions that “There is no Alternative”, they became
finally completely incapable of politically supporting and struggling
for their own alternative. Not to speak about understanding what is
going on and how people are thinking.

In the
environment of prosperity of the ’90s, all that seemed extremely
strong and successful. But as both the middle classes and more
oppressed social strata felt the pressure of the economic crisis and
then of the financial crisis of 2008, the material conditions for
neoliberal hegemony begun to collapse and with them the political and
ideological foundations of the European Union. Unsatisfied by the
pro-globalisation turn of many leftist politicians and parties, the
traditional working class has in some cases deserted them moving to
the far right, the other anti-establishment pole. The identities
neoliberalism tried to suppress for ever, did not disappear, they
went “underground”, remaining deeply inside the collective (and
nationally organized) subconscious, ready to be waken up when people
feel the need to legalize their resistance to a threatening new
order.

Political
corectness finished by blinding its architects and rehabilitating
many of the very same ideas it was persecuting!

Right and
Left, destroying and building

European
Right seems more fit to the role of finishing the collapsing European
Union and destroying the existing European order.

But the real
question is not this any more. The real question is what will replace
the existing European order and how to avoid the rather unavoidable,
in the middle term, collapse of the existing European order will not
lead also to the collapse of Europe.

For various
reasons, the simple return of Europe to its nation-states, cannot be
the solution. And even if British, French and Germans can as a
minimum think and try it, nobody else can seriously believe to such a
perspective. This is why, the defense of the nation-states and of
what remains of democracy in their context is absolutely necessary,
but in the same time is impossible without the emergence of a new
project, socio-economic and international, able to replace the
collapsing neoliberal Order.

If Europeans
needed finally the Right to destroy, they will probably need some
sort of Left to build. But this should be a much more radical, much
more serious, much more dedicated Left, deprived of its illusions
about the EU and globalization and its opportunism.

The result
of the British referendum illustrates well the hard choices Sanders
and Corbyn will be pushed to make, between the radicalism which
propelled them to their positions and the conservatism of their
parties. To succeed they should find a way to unite the dissent, the
reformism of those who still have much to lose and those who have
nothing to lose. The conclusions the Podemos leadership in Spain and
the leaders of the French and the German Left will draw from the
British case may be be also of crucial importance not only for the
immediate future of the continent, but for its History.